Under my showerhead, I drink
the water to feel full.
Faking the still, there are little
footsteps over my footsteps.
Gishin. Ghost in Korean.
Sohn. Hand.
I have never told anyone
everything.
Older now, I will not dress myself.
You cannot pity a baby.
Like innocence and fat
I have never been on time.
Before willfulness, I ate stucco
dropped from the ceiling to my face.
I started to tell stories because
my parents lived so far away.
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More About
EJ Koh
EJ Koh is a poet, translator of Korean poetry, and author of experimental novel Red (Collective Presse, 2013). Her poems have appeared in TriQuarterly, La Petite Zine, Narrative Magazine, Columbia Review, among others. She has work forthcoming in The Anthology of Surveillance Poetics from Black Ocean Press (ed. Andrew Ridker Black Ocean, 2014). She has been featured in Time Out New York, GalleyCat, KoreAm Journal, and FlavorWire’s 23 People Who Will Make You Care About Poetry. She earned her Masters of Fine Arts at Columbia University in New York and was awarded a Kundiman Fellowship for Poetry and The MacDowell Colony Fellowship in New Hampshire. She blogs at thisisEJKoh.com.